


You think I don't love you? Oh, but I do.

by mariebittersea



Category: Agent Carter (TV)
Genre: 2x10 Hollywood Ending, Angst (maybe. if you squint.), F/M, Fluff, Love Confessions, Season/Series 02 Spoilers, Unresolved Emotional Tension, honestly i'm trying but i really don't know how to tag things, that actually gets resolved
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-01-24
Updated: 2018-01-24
Packaged: 2019-03-08 21:02:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,777
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13466478
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mariebittersea/pseuds/mariebittersea
Summary: Daniel Sousa isn’t entirely sure what he expected when he leaned back in his chair and accused Peggy Carter of loving him.





	You think I don't love you? Oh, but I do.

Daniel Sousa isn’t entirely sure what he expected when he leaned back in his chair and accused Peggy Carter of loving him.

It’s less than a day after the Rift closing, and he and Peggy have just signed their names to the last report in the last file on his desk, officially closing the Isodyne Energy investigation. It’s been only a few weeks since the Lady in the Lake murder that brought Peggy from New York and started all of this, but Daniel can hardly remember a time before she was here, preventing world catastrophe alongside him just like they used to on the other side of the country.

He can’t shake the unease that infuses his veins when he pictures walking into the Auerbach Theatrical Agency tomorrow and having her not be there. What they’re doing now, it feels right. Their work as a team feels like it could, and should, last forever.

But still, there is a distance. Both of them have put on an excellent performance of camaraderie while sifting through documents, content to strategically ignore the unspoken reality that hangs like yet another ghost in the air between them: Peggy is leaving. They have been passing files within an arm’s reach at opposite ends of his desk, but the three feet of separation feel more like miles and she is leaving in mere hours but he doesn’t want her to go. He doesn’t want her to go.

And of course, there is the matter of her nearly kissing him in that van, which they still haven’t talked about.

Daniel at least subconsciously understands that this is what motivates him to stop her when she stands up to say goodbye, and maybe Peggy realizes it too. Her hands on her hips say she knows full well that he doesn’t actually _feel obligated as her supervisor_ to admonish her recklessness at the Rift; her identically impulsive behavior during the Stark investigation is still fresh in everyone’s mind, and besides, Daniel has known since the day he met Peggy that she will never be the type to follow protocol in the field. It may induce chronic headaches in all those who care about her, but it’s also one of the many qualities that make her an exceptional agent.

No, what he’s really trying to call out is her hypocrisy, because it has barely been a few days since the last time they stood in this office and she read him his rights for not standing idly by while Jason Wilkes shot her under the influence of Zero Matter. Neither Daniel nor Peggy are unobservant enough not to notice the parallels between that night and the day the Rift opened: each of them has now found themselves abruptly thrust into danger, only to have the other abandon all rationality in favor of pulling them away from certain death (in one case, literally).

Daniel wants to know whether Peggy held onto that rope at the Rift simply because it’s her nature to risk her own life to save everyone, or if she has some kind of personal stake in his survival. He’s asking if her failure to be _dispassionate_ —as she had called it—really means that he loves him.

Judging from their current state of entanglement in each other’s arms, her answer is a resounding yes.

Time is rapidly becoming a blur, but Daniel can’t bring to mind any objections. Peggy Carter is kissing him and her hands are on his face and in his hair and gripping his jacket and his shoulders, and their bodies are on fire and they have fallen back into his desk chair and she is _everything_ and—

—and she is still leaving.

Sluggish neurons resume firing in his scrambled brain, and it hits Daniel all at once that the woman leaving bright red lipstick stains across the lower half of his face has a cross-country flight scheduled for takeoff in less than three hours. Her suitcases are packed and waiting next to Rose’s desk downstairs, for Christ’s sake. Though he’d much rather tune out that meddling voice of responsibility in the back of his head and enjoy this moment, which he’d given up hope of realizing months ago, Daniel knows that he has to say something.

“…Wait. Peggy, wait—” he manages between amiable assaults on his lips. After a moment, she stops kissing him to draw back far enough— _just_ far enough, he notes with a certain degree of satisfaction—that she can look him in his eyes.

“What is it, Daniel?” He watches Peggy’s eyes dart around, and is sharp enough to notice that her cheeks darken a few shades in the gold light as she takes stock of their rather compromising position. Her grip on his shoulders loosens slightly—that, he didn’t intend or anticipate—and he’s about to speak when, to his dismay, she clears her throat.

Three hour time difference be damned, Daniel Sousa has known Peggy Carter for long enough to know that when she clears her throat and averts her eyes the way she’s doing now, it means she’s uncertain. He’s seen her use this ploy at least a dozen times in the field; it gains her a few extra seconds to collect her thoughts, and if Daniel hadn’t been trained by the army and the SSR to recognize those sorts of tells, he might not have noticed. But he was, and he does, so he’s mildly panicked but not utterly taken aback by what she says next.

“If…if this is moving too fast for—and just after Violet, of course you might need—I’m so sorry, Daniel, I didn’t realize—I wouldn’t dream of expecting—” Peggy is stumbling now, her thoughts rushing out in a chaotic jumble that, unfortunately, he understands instantly. Daniel’s heart jolts when he realizes what she’s trying to tell him, what she’s assuming from his interruption that he wants—or doesn’t want—to continue.

“No, _no_ —Peggy, God no,” he says all in a rush, and now he’s the one stumbling to backtrack from what suddenly has the potential to become yet another massive blunder, on par with him running across the country to escape feelings that have clearly followed him straight to LA. How can the extraordinary woman in his arms not understand that his former relationship with Violet is the absolute last thing on his mind right now?

Daniel’s hands tighten around Peggy’s waist as he thinks about his next words, though he is careful not to let his fingers brush the place where she acts as though she wasn’t impaled by rebar less than a week ago. Peggy’s habit is to pretend she is indestructible, and by now she has certainly proven herself relentless, but there is a difference between relentless and unstoppable and Daniel would prefer not to be responsible for her stitches popping for a second time.

Now it seems as though Peggy’s ability to feign physical invulnerability might extend to her emotional defenses as well. She doesn’t pull away from his embrace, but she doesn’t lean into it either, and Daniel is reminded once again that the time for action is now. He speaks:

“No, not—it’s nothing like that. It’s just that…you do have to catch a plane back to New York today, and I just wanted to…” he trails off.

_To make sure this means as much to you as it does to me_ , Daniel finishes in his head, though after nearly a year of confusion and doubt and miscommunication and bad timing, he is finally almost certain that the woman in his arms feels the same way he does. Almost.

And he’s right. Peggy’s arms relax around his shoulders, and she releases a breath that neither of them knew she was holding. With it, the tension dissolves, and so does the elephant in the room.

“Yes, well. I thought I’d miss that flight.” Peggy’s lips quirk up into her trademark smile accented by slightly smeared lipstick, a grin which only widens in response to the similar expression Daniel assumes he must be wearing in response.

He remembers the first time she said that, right after Thompson stormed in to the LA office and demanded they abandon the Isodyne case. If he recalls correctly, it was also right before Peggy decided to start hemorrhaging her stockpile of vacation days to get to the bottom of the Zero Matter conspiracy they had begun to investigate together. He doesn’t need to ask to know what she’s really saying this time: _I’m in this with you until the end_.

He knows she can read on his face how overjoyed he is to hear that she’s not going anywhere, which is just as well, because Daniel has held onto his poker face with this woman long enough to last a lifetime of unrequited affection.

With the weight lifted off his chest, Daniel cracks a smile and quips, “Gosh, Peg, how many days off can you possibly have left? The SSR isn’t exactly in the business of handing out extended vacations on their dime, you know.” The muscles in his face are stretching so wide he’s convinced they’ll stick smiling for the rest of time.

She laughs. “I told you, Daniel, I have a lot of unused personal days stacked away from over the past few years. Although, I suppose they will run out eventually, so…” She lifts an eyebrow and tilts her face back toward his; they’re both feeling slightly giddy with new happiness, and it’s hard to keep still. “I don’t suppose you’d have any positions available in the near future, Chief? Once Thompson finds out he’s returning to New York alone for a second time, something tells me I’m going to find myself quite in need of a job.”

Already leaning in, Daniel responds, “Something tells _me_ I’ll be able to find you a desk.” Their lips meet.

It takes altogether too long before Peggy and Daniel are shaken from their focus on each other by a red-faced and visibly uncomfortable agent tapping on the glass door to the office—before either of them remembers that yet more paperwork will need to be filled out before Peggy can officially call herself an agent in the SSR’s Los Angeles division; before anyone actually calls Thompson at his hotel to let him know what’s going on with his missing agent; and before they realize that Daniel’s office consists of rather more windows than walls, and that their rather unprofessional display of affection has been entirely visible to anyone caring to peer through the blinds.

In the moment, though, neither of them seems to care.

**Author's Note:**

> Okay, so I’ve been lurking around the Agent Carter archive for ages, but this is my first foray into actually attempting to write for Peggy and Daniel. I’m not completely sure what this even is. I wrote it because I fell back in love with these two after finishing an Agent Carter re-watch, and also because I need a *lot* of practice writing dialogue. So! If you're so inclined, please let me know what I’m doing right/what I can improve on in the future :)
> 
> In all honesty, this is probably a one-shot, but I'm marking it as incomplete for now because I'm toying with the idea of adding a second chapter from Peggy's POV.
> 
> Title from “Oh, But I Do” by Margaret Whiting, aka the song that was playing during that one particular scene in Sousa's office in 2x10.


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